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It Is 2 Minutes to Midnight It is 2 minutes to midnight 2018 Doomsday Clock Statement Science and Security Board Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Editor, John Mecklin IT IS 2 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT ® Statement from the President and CEO The year just past proved perilous and chaotic, the many other foundations, corporations, and a year in which many of the risks foreshadowed individuals who contribute regularly to the in our last Clock statement came into full relief. Bulletin’s mission. We are deeply grateful for this In 2017, we saw reckless language in the nuclear ongoing support. realm heat up already dangerous situations and re-learned that minimizing evidence-based It is urgent that, collectively, we put in the work assessments regarding climate and other global necessary to produce a 2019 Clock statement that challenges does not lead to better public policies. rewinds the Doomsday Clock. Get engaged, get involved, and help create that future. The time is Although the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists now. focuses on nuclear risk, climate change, and emerging technologies, the nuclear landscape Rachel Bronson, PhD takes center stage in this year’s Clock statement. President & CEO Major nuclear actors are on the cusp of a new 25 January, 2018 arms race, one that will be very expensive Chicago, IL and will increase the likelihood of accidents and misperceptions. Across the globe, nuclear weapons are poised to become more rather than less usable because of nations’ investments in their nuclear arsenals. This is a concern that the Bulletin has been highlighting for some time, but momentum toward this new reality is increasing. As you will see in the discussion that follows, the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board has once again assessed progress—actually, lack thereof—in managing the technologies that can bring humanity both relief and harm. It is my hope that the statement focuses world attention on today’s dangerous trajectory and urges leaders and citizens alike to redouble their efforts in committing to a path that advances the health and safety of the planet. The Board has provided recommendations for how we might go about achieving this end, and it is urgent that we take heed. I commend the members of the Science and Security Board for the work they undertake every day to put us on a safer footing. As always, John Mecklin’s talented pen has helped pull together wide-ranging contributions and allowed a large group of engaged experts to speak with one voice. The Bulletin couldn’t serve its proper role without financial support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the MacArthur Foundation, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists § 1 It is now two minutes to midnight Editor’s note: Founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The decision to move (or to leave in place) the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is made every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 15 Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and new technologies emerging in other domains. A printable PDF of this statement, complete with the President and CEO’s statement and Science and Security Board biographies, is available here. To: Leaders and citizens of the world In South Asia, Pakistan and India have continued Re: Two minutes to midnight to build ever-larger arsenals of nuclear weapons. Date: January 25, 2018 And in the Middle East, uncertainty about In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively continued US support for the landmark Iranian to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate nuclear deal adds to a bleak overall picture. change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago—and as To call the world nuclear situation dire is to dangerous as it has been since World War II. understate the danger—and its immediacy. The greatest risks last year arose in the nuclear On the climate change front, the danger may realm. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program seem less immediate, but avoiding catastrophic made remarkable progress in 2017, increasing temperature increases in the long run requires risks to North Korea urgent attention now. Global itself, other countries carbon dioxide emissions have North Korea’s nuclear weapons not yet shown the beginnings of in the region, and the program made remarkable United States. Hyperbolic the sustained decline towards progress in 2017, increasing zero that must occur if ever- rhetoric and provocative risks to itself, other countries actions by both sides have greater warming is to be avoided. in the region, and the United The nations of the world will increased the possibility States. of nuclear war by accident have to significantly decrease or miscalculation. their greenhouse gas emissions to keep climate risks manageable, But the dangers brewing on the Korean Peninsula and so far, the global response has fallen far short were not the only nuclear risks evident in 2017: of meeting this challenge. The United States and Russia remained at odds, continuing military exercises along the borders Beyond the nuclear and climate domains, of NATO, undermining the Intermediate-Range technological change is disrupting democracies Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), upgrading their around the world as states seek and exploit nuclear arsenals, and eschewing arms control opportunities to use information technologies as negotiations. weapons, among them internet-based deception campaigns aimed at undermining elections and In the Asia-Pacific region, tensions over the South popular confidence in institutions essential to free China Sea have increased, with relations between thought and global security. the United States and China insufficient to re- establish a stable security situation. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board believes the perilous world Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists § 2 security situation just described would, in itself, sophisticated nuclear weapons. North Korea justify moving the minute hand of the Doomsday has or soon will have capabilities to match its Clock closer to midnight. verbal threats—specifically, a thermonuclear warhead and a ballistic missile that can carry it But there has also been a breakdown in the to the US mainland. In September, North Korea international order that has been dangerously tested what experts assess to be a true two-stage exacerbated by recent US actions. In 2017, thermonuclear device, and in November, it tested the United States backed away from its long- the Hwasong-15 missile, which experts believe standing leadership role in the world, reducing has a range of over 8,000 kilometers. The United its commitment to seek common ground and States and its allies, Japan and South Korea, undermining the overall effort toward solving responded with more frequent and larger military pressing global governance challenges. Neither exercises, while China and Russia proposed a allies nor adversaries have been able to reliably freeze by North Korea of nuclear and missile tests predict US actions—or understand when US in exchange for a freeze in US exercises. pronouncements are real, and when they are mere rhetoric. International diplomacy has been The failure to secure a temporary freeze in 2017 reduced to name-calling, giving it a surrealistic was unsurprising to observers of the downward sense of unreality that makes the world security spiral of nuclear rhetoric between US President situation ever more threatening. Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The failure to rein in North Korea’s Because of the extraordinary danger of the current nuclear program will reverberate not just in the moment, the Science and Security Board today Asia-Pacific, as neighboring countries review moves the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock 30 their security options, but more seconds closer to catastrophe. widely, as all countries consider It is now two minutes to It is now two minutes to the costs and benefits of the midnight—the closest the midnight—the closest the international framework of Clock has ever been to Clock has ever been to nonproliferation treaties and Doomsday, and as close as it Doomsday, and as close as it agreements. was in 1953, at the height of the was in 1953, at the height of Cold War. the Cold War. Nuclear risks have been compounded by US-Russia The Science and Security relations that now feature Board hopes this resetting more conflict than cooperation. of the Clock will be interpreted exactly as it is Coordination on nuclear risk reduction is all but meant—as an urgent warning of global danger. dead, and no solution to disputes over the INF The time for world leaders to address looming Treaty—a landmark agreement to rid Europe nuclear danger and the continuing march of of medium-range nuclear missiles—is readily climate change is long past. The time for the apparent. Both sides allege violations, but Russia’s citizens of the world to demand such action is deployment of a new ground-launched cruise now: #rewindtheDoomsdayClock. missile, if not addressed, could trigger a collapse The untenable nuclear threat. The risk that of the treaty. Such a collapse would make what nuclear weapons may be used—intentionally or should have been a relatively easy five-year because of miscalculation—grew last year around extension of the New START arms control pact the globe. much harder to achieve and could terminate an arms control process that dates back to the early North Korea has long defied UN Security 1970s.
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